CHAPTER X 



SCIENCE AND RELIGION 



Dana's Religious Convictions Relation of Science and Religion At- 

 tempted Reconciliation of Geology and Genesis Reply to Tayler 

 Lewis Friendly Words of Approval Guyot's Influence Later Views 

 Characteristics of his Religious Life. 



SOON after entering upon his professorship, Professor 

 Dana became involved in a discussion respecting the 

 relation of science and religion, which for more than a 

 year occupied his thoughts and his pen. The incident 

 which arrested his attention was the appearance of a book 

 by a scholar and theologian, Professor Tayler Lewis, on 

 the Mosaic cosmogony, and especially on the relations of 

 science to the Bible. 



This episode affords an opportunity to consider the re- 

 ligious convictions of Dana, which were strong and con- 

 tinuous from the beginning of life to its close. The 

 reader of his letters has already seen abundant indications 

 of his firm Christian faith, and this will be more appar- 

 ent as his life advances. Yet the questions that occupy 

 thoughtful religious men at the close of the nineteenth 

 century are so different from those which were dominant 

 thirty or forty years ago, and the phraseology of that 

 time now appears so antiquated and to many so unintel- 

 ligible, that a brief discussion' of Dana's spiritual and in- 

 tellectual attitude toward religion may furnish the key to 

 many expressions which are found in his books and his 

 letters. 



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